Hamburger Cupcakes (by Amanda)

Three of our guy friends moved into an apartment together and they were throwing a housewarming party. Tina asked me if I was going to the party, and I said yes. Since Tina was also planning on going, she said, "We should have made them a cake." To this I replied, "It's not too late."

Since we decided to make them a cake last minute, we felt that cupcakes would be the quicker and easier treat to make. However, most of the decorations we had on hand were flowers and hearts, so we weren't quite sure how we were going to decorate them for a group of guys.

For no real reason other than that they weren't too girly, we decided to make cupcakes that looked like hamburgers. They were fairly simple to make. The "buns" are the tops and bottoms of white cupcakes. The "patties" are the bottom parts of chocolate cupcakes. The "mayonnaise" is coconut cream cheese frosting. The "lettuce" is dyed green coconut shreds. The "ketchup and mustard" is dyed red and yellow coconut cream cheese frosting. We stuck the traditional hamburger toothpick through them and then dotted the top "bun" with coconut cream cheese frosting to make the "sesame seeds."

The party seemed to really enjoy them, and Tina and I were really happy with how they turned out!

Vegan

These tasty treats were a new challenge... they were vegan! I have to admit I was nervous that they would turn out terrible. I thought how can a cupcake bake up moist and delicious without eggs, butter or milk, but they turned out fantastic! They had a moist, tender crumb and tasted delicious.

Our First Wedding!!!

On Sunday we had our very first wedding cake/cupcakes that we needed to make. The wedding colors were brown and pink, and the flower of choice was cherry blossom.

The top cake was Devil's Food Chocolate with Buttercream frosting.In order to try and please everyone, the bride and groom decided that they wanted 3 flavors of cupcakes with 3 flavors of frosting. We had Red Velvet cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting, White Chocolate cupcakes, half with Buttercream frosting and half with Raspberry Buttercream frosting, and Devil's Food Chocolate cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream frosting. So, half of the cupcakes were pink and the other half were white.The wedding was at the Japanese Gardens in Balboa Park, and it was so beautiful! After we set up our cupcake stand the wedding coordinator added flowers and candle decorations to the table, and it ended up looking so great! At night when the candles were lit up, it was even more pretty.

Our first wedding was a smashing success!

Wedding shower!

This weekend was full of wedding related cakes. Saturday we made 25 cupcakes for a wedding shower in Orange County. The theme was pink, brown and daisies. We put together these white chocolate and lemon cupcakes and topped them with vanilla and strawberry buttercream.

Summer fun

When a friend called to let us know about a fundraising event she was putting on for the San Diego Chapter of Dress for Success, we quickly jumped at the opportunity to donate a cake for the event.

The cake was a scrumptious lemon cake filled with raspberry, and covered in buttercream and graham crackers.

Fourth of July!

This year we had a chance to make a surprise birthday cake for the Fourth of July. The cake had a huge twist.. they wanted it to be green (birthday boy's favorite color). So we went to work and came up with this festive creation.

This was our first attempt at a carrot cake and it was delicious! It was covered and filled with cream cheese frosting and had little fondant stars shooting off on wires.

Twilight

Tina’s boss asked Tina if we could make a birthday cake for her teenage daughter. She wanted the cake to be “Twilight” themed. For those readers who don’t know, “Twilight” is the first in a series of books about teenage vampires, and it was recently turned into a movie. At first, Tina’s boss wanted the cake to be pink and sparkly which made the two of us really tap into our creative side. The theme of the books is red, black, and white, so we did a lot of research to see how we could incorporate those colors with the “Twilight” theme. Before we came up with any solid ideas, however, Tina’s boss changed her mind and requested that the cake decorations be based on the covers of the books, which look like this:

Tina’s boss requested a White Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Mousse filling, which turned out to be delicious! Here is the finished product: